KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith is ad­vo­cat­ing for a pol­i­cy that al­lows es­sen­tial work­ers to by­pass road­blocks while po­lice con­tin­ue to crack down on peo­ple who breach the State’s COVID-19 mea­sures.
Grif­fith told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, even as the po­lice con­tin­ued road­blocks, that he was in di­a­logue with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who is chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, to have the pro­pos­al ap­proved.

The move comes in the wake of a se­ries of road ex­er­cis­es last Fri­day which caused grid­lock traf­fic in some parts of the coun­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly along the east-west cor­ri­dor. Po­lice re­port­ed that es­sen­tial work­ers and peo­ple go­ing to su­per­mar­kets, banks and phar­ma­cies were caught in the road­blocks. How­ev­er, they al­so en­coun­tered those who went out to meet loved ones, sell pets and check on their busi­ness­es.
Yes­ter­day, Grif­fith re­it­er­at­ed that the ma­jor­i­ty of those caught in the road­blocks were not es­sen­tial work­ers and not­ed the po­lice are pro­vid­ing de­ter­rents that are work­ing. How­ev­er, he en­sured that the po­lice would on­ly op­er­ate based on the au­thor­i­ty giv­en to them.
But of­fi­cers in the south­ern parts of Trinidad are hav­ing an eas­i­er time with the pub­lic. 

In the South­ern Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Wayne Mo­hammed said yes­ter­day that peo­ple live a slow­er, fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed lifestyle so the de­sire to stray out of their homes is lim­it­ed to es­sen­tial busi­ness. He said when his of­fi­cers ques­tioned peo­ple on the roads, they were ei­ther go­ing to the su­per­mar­ket, phar­ma­cies, hard­ware stores or check­ing up on el­der­ly rel­a­tives who live alone.
“I am not see­ing the num­ber of peo­ple that were there be­fore the COVID-19 out­break, so they are heed­ing the call. We are not see­ing that large amount of traf­fic, ex­cept for the main area in Mara­bel­la where the banks, phar­ma­cies and su­per­mar­kets are close to each oth­er,” Mo­hammed said.
“We have set up road­blocks through­out the di­vi­sion to en­sure peo­ple com­ply with the law and that on­ly the es­sen­tial work­ers are out­side while the rest of the pop­u­la­tion stay at home. I am get­ting re­ports that peo­ple are lis­ten­ing. South­ern peo­ple as­cribed to a lifestyle where­by they cook at home and spend time with their fam­i­lies. They don’t need to go out­side un­nec­es­sar­i­ly.”

In the South West­ern Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Sharon Gomez-Coop­er said peo­ple are aware of the road­blocks so they obey the law.
“Peo­ple are com­ply­ing down here, but of course you will get one to two who do not. Peo­ple here are more com­pli­ant be­cause they recog­nise that go­ing out there may cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion where they will end up in a road­block. They do not want to be in that traf­fic jam so they more or less leave their homes on­ly to car­ry out es­sen­tial busi­ness,” Gomez-Coop­er said.
Cen­tral Di­vi­sion head, Snr Supt Curt Si­mon, said his of­fi­cers had to deal with a large num­ber of peo­ple leav­ing their homes last week. But fol­low­ing road­blocks on Fri­day, there was a dras­tic re­duc­tion in traf­fic in the com­mer­cial hubs through­out the di­vi­sion yes­ter­day.
“Peo­ple were giv­ing friv­o­lous ex­cus­es last week. I heard two men­tioned on the air­ways and some were hu­mor­ous and had noth­ing to do with es­sen­tial stuff. Dur­ing last week’s ex­er­cis­es, we saw that non-es­sen­tials were out in greater num­bers than es­sen­tial work­ers.

“We un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion so we are very po­lite in per­suad­ing peo­ple to stay home and keep them­selves and their fam­i­lies who they in­ter­act with safe. If they come in­to con­tact with the virus out there and go home to their loved ones, the virus can spread in their homes,” Si­mon said.
“I think that our per­sua­sion is work­ing. We made a com­par­i­son to­day (yes­ter­day) against last Fri­day’s ex­er­cise and we have few­er ve­hi­cles in the main ar­eas through­out Cen­tral Di­vi­sion.”

In those re­cent road­blocks, Si­mon said they on­ly pe­nalised mo­torists for traf­fic of­fences and no one was held for se­ri­ous crimes such as nar­cotics and firearm pos­ses­sion. How­ev­er, he be­lieves crim­i­nals are aware of the road­blocks around the coun­try and avoid­ing them.